How Many Forks Should You Expect This Year?

With forks after forks in the cryptocurrency market in general and bitcoins in specific, consumers want to know what they can expect going forward. Here we take a look at the forks expected to happen in the future.

On the 1st of August this year, a faction of the bitcoin community shocked the cryptocurrency world by initiating a new payment network called Bitcoin Cash. There were a lot of currencies that were spin-offs of Bitcoin, but this was unusual since the new currency branched from the existing blockchain used for bitcoins. What resulted was a cryptocurrency extremely similar to a stock split, as everyone who had control of one bitcoin suddenly owned bitcoin cash once the split happened.

Today, Bitcoin Cash is in circulation at a value of around $20 billion, which makes it the third leading protagonist in the cryptocurrency sphere; third only to the original bitcoin and ethereum. With so much up for grabs it was considered inevitable that other investors would join the market and look for spoils from these forks.

As was expected, during early November we saw a group of bitcoin developers announce Bitcoin Gold. This version of bitcoins made mining easier and has democratized it by making the process possible for all users wishing to do so through their home PCs. Since bitcoin gold also branched off from the original blockchain, everyone who had a normal bitcoin with them got a ‘gold’ bitcoin after the fork was done. Bitcoin Gold is currently valued around $270 per coin.

With the profitability in forks luring investors over, questions remain about who would follow this trend in the future. The answer is – a whole lot of investors. We are expecting numerous forks by the end of this year and some early next year.

Here is a brief intro of the ones you can expect to roll out this year.

Bitcoin Silver

Bitcoin silver is a fork from the bitcoin blockchain that will come out by December this year. Miners can start creating blocks through algorithms. While the original blockchain for bitcoins will continue unaltered, this fork will split off from the blockchain. Bitcoin silver will be distributed through a method similar to that of Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold as all users owning one bitcoin will get a private key for bitcoin silver in December.

Bitcoin Platinum

Another fork from the original bitcoin blockchain, bitcoin platinum would roll out during the twilight of 2017. The system will follow the blockchain of bitcoin and will further enhance it by increasing the size of the blockchain as per the Segwit2x strategy. The owners of bitcoin platinum have announced a decentralized method of the fork, and suggest that everyone can take part in bitcoin platinum and reap benefits from its decentralized setup.

Bitcoin Diamond

Bitcoin Diamond is another fork set to follow the ones mentioned above. The fork will use the original blockchain for bitcoin, but will do so only after making some changes to it. The changes here can be compared to bitcoin platinum. The distribution method is also said to be similar to other forks.